Five Minutes of Heaven

Plot Summary
In 1970s Northern Ireland, young Joe Griffin watches in horror as the teenage leader of a UVF cell shoots Joe's brother dead. Thirty years later, peace is at hand, and Joe (James Nesbitt) is to meet his brother's killer, Alistair Little (Liam Neeson), on live TV. Unbeknownst to the TV crew, Joe is not there to reconcile with Alistair, but to kill him.

Early scenes set up the tragedy, but the majority of Oliver Hirschbiegel's movie is set in a TV studio where the two eventually face each other, and the tension, unfortunately, quickly becomes stagey.
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This movie uniquely captured the simplistic, yet tragic, familiarities of gang violence not only in Northern Ireland, but how humans all over the world are simply stupid animals, and that we harbour hatred - hatred that is perpetuated by daily practices and manifested deeper and deeper over time. In this movie, the hatred is perpetuated by the mother instilling the persistant question of "why" didn't the child who witnessed the murder of his brother, why didn't he do anything? This bothered him throughout life, enough to get his "five minuted of heaven" live on air, in a televised broadcast for all eyes to see the perpetual violence that continues to plague humans everywhere in similar ethnic and religious situations all over the planet. Humans are essentially stupid animals, and there are no prospects for hope within our species. Warfare and fear will always reign.

4*..."5MINUTES" had potential but just a few lines in the script could have made it great but instead the script ends up with a script that made it a B movie for sappy and cliche reasons. The writer's manual says watch those cliches closer than verb conjugations. Characters can speak "bad English' but for godsake don't have the characters going sappy in a movie that cost nearly $40 on a date. Hypothetical, not a spoiler: It' s like a father refusing to pull the trigger on a home invader because he doesn't want to kill someone in front of his kids ...who, by the way, is about to kill his kids. It's like one of those decisio-making kind of things ...in life! And, I tell you...it was a great decision to make in the movie. I don't like the context on how that decision was presented. It was way HBO Lifetime style. LIAM never disappoint, not really. He can just walk down the street with those long legs and the audience will pay attention. We did think we were in Bellfast, Ireland. That part was real enough. But there was something vital missing in the script and so it gets one mark down. --Margaret Opine

A highly intelligent - superbly acted - and beautifully crafted dialog addressing the psychological burdens of guilt; whether active or passive. This is a truly profound film, much in the tradition of Grand Illusion.